Curse

comonnow · Feb 25, 2007, 07:26 PM // 19:26

Well, I guess to some degree you are correct however this is what I meant. In 8v8 you need more team coordination that most 6v6 teams don't really need. Either way most teams that go into HA suck, it really shouldn't be debated b/c its true. You either fight a pug spike that thinks they can we b/c they count down from 3, but don't realize they arent using any other skills on their bar. Or you come up agaionst some stupid pug hexem up group with spirits and stuff that think their build will win. Ocasionally you will get a good guild team, or a team of friends that are acutally good and have a good fight, but generally if you are good, you will make it to Halls.

In 8v8 pugs form less frequently b/c you have to get more players, making it harder to form. You have guild teams with 8 people who then have to decide to HA or GvG and most teams that choose to HA over GvG are done GvGin for the night, or are just good HA teams that enjoy it more than GvG, therefor making them a good team, and resulting in a good match. 8v8 is better and I think any half decent player will agree with me.

Not sure what I'm really trying to say here but basicallyl, 6v6 sucks, 8v8 isn't awesome but it's a hell of a lot better than 6v6 and offers more of a challenge to good guilds who actually want to enter a competetive environment when they HA.

Mental Leteci · Feb 25, 2007, 09:18 PM // 21:18

I'd like to change my opinion. HA is bad with 6v6 or 8v8, party size really doesn't matter. Why do they always have to fix something and then break it even more. Like, first they introduce song which kinda made holding harder and then they make it 6v6 and screw it all up. Now they're going to make it 8v8 again, but with new and may I say stupid mechanics. Played builds are:
2 sins,2 fire (playing it myself)
rit spike

All I've seen. Whoever tried to be original and played something else got wiped.

Death_From_Above · Feb 25, 2007, 09:28 PM // 21:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomcruisejr

yea, psychic distraction, seeking arrows/savage, choking gas. using them was a sign of being the greatest HA players ever. if you use them to beat all your opponents, youre the most skilled HoH holders evah.

Ye it sort of was to be honest lol because those were skills you dont just go plop and your dun lol. You actually have to applie skill and tatics into it. Like seeking arrow rangers with savage didnt just stand there doing savage ect. Infact many of the time they were being galed or attacked. Try manovering through that whiles trying to interupt ghost. Basically the good ranger did a good job the poor ranger didnt he would often miss and enermy would cap so yes using these skills is a sign but only to a certain extent. Depends how good the player is

tomcruisejr · Feb 25, 2007, 09:40 PM // 21:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Death_From_Above

Ye it sort of was to be honest lol because those were skills you dont just go plop and your dun lol.

indeed, you don't just go plop coz ghostly hero is spamming "claim resource" zomg.

Thom Bangalter · Feb 25, 2007, 10:42 PM // 22:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

8v8 is definately ftw but I'm not sure I agree with this. In 8v8 you can kinda BS your way through a decent run with one or two guys on your team that don't know what they're doing--if you have good monks. In 6v6 if even one guy is an idiot it can flush your whole team. Spikes are weaker in 6v6, pressure is weaker in 6v6; and it's more energy economical for monks to prot the team and keep them up than it is in 8v8. As a general rule I tend to think that a coordinated offense is slightly more difficult in 6v6, whereas a coordinated defense is much easier.

monks are shit, seriously. You just need one guy that knows how to play offense and someone to keep the team up long enough to achieve the objectives.

ap47 · Feb 26, 2007, 01:56 AM // 01:56

WTB more spikewars. 8v8 plz.

Lorekeeper · Feb 26, 2007, 11:27 AM // 11:27

my vote for 8vs8 is for one personal reason

build creativity

i have so much fun with the possibilities under an 8 man party. The room for utility is great. If i want to run a 3 monk backline i can come up with some crazy skill bars. I mean... have you ever seen an aura of faith prot monk win HOH? Well you need to join my teams cos i did just that. Who said glimmer of light was a bad skill... hold HOH 3 times with it and you can show the game population that its the players NOT the build that shines through when it matters.

Im not fussed about fotm or gimmick, Im well aware of the nature of success in HA. Fight the meta or get swept aside.

The problem with a 6 man team in my eyes is that i feel really constrained in build flexibility. If the meta takes a specific form dominated by a couple of builds... theres very little choice i have in terms of build to counter them.

With an 8 man team, during the couple of weeks of 8vs8 testing i was able to run a good variety of builds that took advantage of the meta. They were diverse enough that we didnt get bored running them and i probably could have built a couple more builds to run.

8 man teams also lessened the impact of the kill count maps on build creativity. Kill count maps force you to bring as much spike/dmg in your build as competitively possible. But if you want to run a balanced build, you need to balance the amount of offense you bring with the utility to allow your team to counter the HA meta. With an 8 man team, i have more slots to devote to utility and to offense and defense.

And with all the possible builds available with the classes and skills... having more slots = more chance to include fun stuff that you dont see very often. That is the MOST attractive thing for me as a build creator. I want to include things in my build that people dont see very often... so if i make it onto observer... winning with it... people will think ''wow thats a great idea''.

in a 6man team... i dont have the slots that allow this sort of creativity.

I dont care if the 8vs8 meta is spike... there are so many things available to a 8man HA team which will allow it to wipe out any type of spike it comes across.

If more people realise this, and run good balanced builds... spikes will not be so popular. Their popularity is a symptom of the HA community's inability to beat them.

Besides... as the 8vs8 test went by... i saw less and less spike teams. The meta was shifting and we did not see it settle at all.

Just remove kill count... bring back 8vs8

ive posted my ideas on what to replace kill counts with.. so have others...

try those ideas out

leeky baby · Feb 26, 2007, 05:26 PM // 17:26

the thing im annoyed about with this poll is there is no option of 8v8 with old mechanics >.< its 8 v8 or 6 v6 with kill count both which are bad >.<

Takida · Feb 26, 2007, 11:08 PM // 23:08

Lol random... I think ur the one without brain , ty

Quote:

Originally Posted by Randomway Ftw

reintroduction of 8v8 should be a no brainer, what we should be discussing now is why anet saw the need to destroy HA with objectives changes.

This is the best map/objective setup imo

UW-Annihalation
Burial-Annihalation
Broken-3 Way Altar Holding
Scarred-1v1 Annihalation or 4 way with fame after team defeated, no lever, lever encourages ganking
Unholy- Relic Run
Dark-Annihalation
Courtyard-3 Way Altar
Halls- Original 5 team 10 mins, or 3 team 4 mins altar

No 3 second claim resource, if you can't cap you don't deserve to be in halls anyways.

Bring back 8v8 with altars pl0x, Skill Balances

Remove Ab from Halls, Hurray

Randomway Ftw · Feb 26, 2007, 11:19 PM // 23:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Takida

Lol random... I think ur the one without brain , ty

lol, I realized a forgot sacred temples from that list.

Liberations · Feb 26, 2007, 11:23 PM // 23:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

I voted for somewhat prefer 8v8. I think that 8v8 has more potential mostly and that it's better to work towards what has the most potential.

I think that the kill-count would be ok only as part of HoH rotation but not as something to get on the way there in a 3-way cause it favors spikes too much. In the same way, i wouldn't like to see Broken and Courtyard revert to holding cause this just favors other type of builds more. If you want a random HoH, then you should have 'random' maps on the way there! My suggestion for map rotation, to experience most map types, would be :

Broken Tower -> Capture points. Seems like a good map size for it and the design could work well. And capture points encourages versatile build that can split, discouraging spikes from the start.

Scarred Earth -> Bring back in the rotation as a 1v1 kill count on both sides of 4-5 min. Most kill on each side after 4-5 min win, and you restart both winning teams in center (both kill counts are reset to 0) and you got another 4-5 min. I'd also put an altar of sort (hell, you can just draw a circle of power on the ground, that's about as hard as adding a lever!) in the middle of the map to encourage teams to fight there and not wait for the other team in their side. Holding altar could possibly give a point every minute on top of giving 10% damage increase.

Courtyard -> Altar holding with same rules as current HoH on (points every 30s, etc.)

The 2 relic runs will have to do for Murder Ball.

So full HA map rotation suggestion :

1) Underworld ->RED ENGINE GODeath Match
2) Burial Mounds -> Death Match with Priests
3) Broken Tower -> 3 ways Capture Points
4) Scarred Earth -> 1v1 kill counts x 2, lasts 3-5 min each, counter resets at 0 after first fight
5) Unholy Temples -> Relic run
6) Dark Chambers -> Death Match with Priests
7) Courtyard ->RED ENGINE GO3 ways Holding Altar with new HoH rules (point every 30s)
8) Sacred Temples -> Relic run
9) The Vault -> allow to play dodgeball 4v4 while you wait? =p
10) HoH -> random objective between Murderball, kill count, holding and capture points.

I think that with this rotation, all map types are given similar importance. No build type would be truly encouraged imo. Capture points allows mostly build versatility and movement and any kind of team setup can go through as long as you're somewhat balanced and can split, etc. Scarred Earth wouuld be kill count, but in 1v1 so that it doesn't favor any particular build, and the kill-count objective would give a time limit to prevent Scarred Earth from lasting 30 min for 3 fame. The map is small enough in the first 1v1 anyway to prevent getting a few kills and just running away. Courtyard with holding would allow everyone to have fun doing it again (it WOULD be fun if it's not all HA is about). And HoH would be the pinnacle where you have to master all the game types you just played at random against different teams.

Imo, this would make Halls MUCH more interesting than 'revert all back to holding' or 'encourage kill counts a lot'.

Why can't more people be like Patccmoi? I thik your idea are great and ftw. You just wrote down perfection.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

And HoH would be the pinnacle where you have to master all the game types you just played at random against different team

Agreed. Repetetive Matches are boring.

Something I'd like to add- Throw in a 6v6 seperate tornament and make it old rules.

Randomway Ftw · Feb 26, 2007, 11:35 PM // 23:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Liberations

Agreed. Repetetive Matches are boring.

Just because a match has the same objective does not make it repetitive, GvG is repetitive because the objective is to always kill the lord, lets make GvG random objectives to make it less repetitive. Oh, wait objective does not mean everything about how the match is played. Maybe if you continualy face them same build over and over again it would be repetitive. In old 8v8 there were plenty of builds, many of them might of been lame but there was a variety, now what do you have, burst savanaway and ritspike.

Quote:

Something I'd like to add- Throw in a 6v6 seperate tornament and make it old rules.

How about 8v8 tournament with old rules, and 6v6 tournament with new (bad) rules. On second thought why doesn't anet make a new arena, where they can have all the gay objectives, kill count, murder ball, and capture points can all go somewhere else. Maybe anet should think about changing the objectives of ab, that place is fifty times more broken than HA ever was.

Death_From_Above · Feb 27, 2007, 12:49 AM // 00:49

Well i have a hypothesis as to why anet wont just remove lame kill count full from game and put in the old objectives. And this is because after so much hype about the new mechanics and how we would love them.

1. They cant admit they suck and are still trying to get something which wont work to work and in doing so trying to force it upon us.

2. They spent so much time working on lame kill count lol that if they changed HA back to how it was they would feel it was wasted time regarding the kill count which could have been invested somewhere else. And also if they change tombs to 8v8 with old mechanics. Because it would so work, it would put them to shame because it means we would be now officialy where we started so the question that will be asked is. 7 months down the line we are back where we orginaly were but worse of because many people quit. So what were we doing during those 7 months. I believe thats the question anets afraid of.

Takida · Feb 27, 2007, 01:12 AM // 01:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duelb0t

I strongly prefer 6v6, why?
im in small guild and if we have online:
4 ppls => TA
6 ppls => HA
8 ppls => GB

its logic, working and simple. let it 6vs6 pls.

So, what about those who doesnt play gvg, should they quit so ur guild can do ha sometimes? , There is alot of ha guilds, Please think b4 act

im in a gvg guild but i still want ha 8v8, Ha 8v8 with altars ftw, anet pl0x

Quote:

Originally Posted by Death_From_Above

Well i have a hypothesis as to why anet wont just remove lame kill count full from game and put in the old objectives. And this is because after so much hype about the new mechanics and how we would love them.

1. They cant admit they suck and are still trying to get something which wont work to work and in doing so trying to force it upon us.

2. They spent so much time working on lame kill count lol that if they changed HA back to how it was they would feel it was wasted time regarding the kill count which could have been invested somewhere else. And also if they change tombs to 8v8 with old mechanics. Because it would so work, it would put them to shame because it means we would be now officialy where we started so the question that will be asked is. 7 months down the line we are back where we orginaly were but worse of because many people quit. So what were we doing during those 7 months. I believe thats the question anets afraid of.

<3 totally agree

Patccmoi · Feb 27, 2007, 01:27 AM // 01:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Randomway Ftw

Just because a match has the same objective does not make it repetitive, GvG is repetitive because the objective is to always kill the lord, lets make GvG random objectives to make it less repetitive. Oh, wait objective does not mean everything about how the match is played. Maybe if you continualy face them same build over and over again it would be repetitive. In old 8v8 there were plenty of builds, many of them might of been lame but there was a variety, now what do you have, burst savanaway and ritspike.

Actually you can win GvG by tons of variable tactics, be it ganking on NPCs, splitting, trying a beatdown build on the other team and try to push them from the start, go for a control + VoD strategy, etc... The objective allows for countless different tactics to achieve it, not just different builds.

On an altar map, you can win by... holding altar? Which involves not dying if you're in control or pressuring the other team's backline in a 2v1 if you don't. There's not much else to say about it. If you think that interrupting a 5s skill on a NPC is a great tactical maneuver, then i don't have much else to say... Sure there is some tactics involved depending on your build and the other teams, when to cap for instance, but as a whole it's still very straight-forward and no matter what the other teams have, it actually won't change your game plan much (either you pressure their backline or you work on staying alive).

Sorry but yes, for some people, this was awefully repetitive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Randomway Ftw

How about 8v8 tournament with old rules, and 6v6 tournament with new (bad) rules. On second thought why doesn't anet make a new arena, where they can have all the gay objectives, kill count, murder ball, and capture points can all go somewhere else. Maybe anet should think about changing the objectives of ab, that place is fifty times more broken than HA ever was.

Won't comment on the first part cause it's incredibly biased but about AB, it's actually not broken at all and would be one of the most interesting GW game types if you could actually select your full team. The only thing killing AB is having to play along with 2 (generally) very clueless teams.

And about all that 'ANet's afraid of admitting they suck' talk, seriously that's kinda sad. They did revert changes that didn't work (or are at least considering doing so, which is why this poll exists in the first place), but maybe you should consider that ANet also had a REASON for doing those changes in the first place. Trust me, a company that runs an online game without monthly payments doesn't have infinite cash to throw away and they wouldn't have decide to invest their ressources on HA if it was working fine. The thing you just have to realize is that it didn't, the population WAS lowering, and even though hardcore HAers liked the way it was it wasn't working well enough to attract people to it (which eventually just leads to a dying arena, even if it's a year from now when the current hardcore HAers get bored or get a new game). And instead of watching it slowly die, they decided to try to do something about it. Yes, they messed up in part, but they're working on correcting it, so giving some constructive feedback instead of 'revert everything to all it was', which to them was already PROVEN that it didn't work (because of months and months of actually running this system) would be more important if you want an HA you'll like. Cause the reason they won't revert is not cause they're afraid to say that they suck, but cause they already TRIED the first version and it just didn't work after a time even if some hardcore HAers still liked it.

FoxBat · Feb 27, 2007, 01:36 AM // 01:36

I think 8v8 is an inevitability with the new HoH objectives. Before there were 3 or 4 6v6 gimmicks that could hold halls, but now it seems to limited to variations of one build by having to fit in skills for spiking, running, snare, and defense.

Unfortunately pure 8v8 battles pretty much suck under NF balance, gimmicks will always prevail. Hopefully they can replace kill count with something that encourages some amount of splitting, and nerf freaking rit/discord because it's just overpowered.

Randomway Ftw · Feb 27, 2007, 01:56 AM // 01:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Actually you can win GvG by tons of variable tactics, be it ganking on NPCs, splitting, trying a beatdown build on the other team and try to push them from the start, go for a control + VoD strategy, etc... The objective allows for countless different tactics to achieve it, not just different builds.

On an altar map, you can win by... holding altar? Which involves not dying if you're in control or pressuring the other team's backline in a 2v1 if you don't. There's not much else to say about it. If you think that interrupting a 5s skill on a NPC is a great tactical maneuver, then i don't have much else to say... Sure there is some tactics involved depending on your build and the other teams, when to cap for instance, but as a whole it's still very straight-forward and no matter what the other teams have, it actually won't change your game plan much (either you pressure their backline or you work on staying alive).

The objective of good halls was to be in control of the altar at the end of the match, in order to accomplish this you could chain interupts and knockdowns on the hero to prevent him from capping the altar, you could keep the hero alive, you could bodyblock the hero, you could ninja the hero after 2 mins, and you could give up the altar and gank it back. Many skills could be used to win an altar map, different strategies were implemented as well from time to time. However the discussion is not about how strategicaly deep altars are, its about why anet listen to the complaints from people who don't regularly play HA and effectively remove the arena from the game.

Quote:

And about all that 'ANet's afraid of admitting they suck' talk, seriously that's kinda sad. They did revert changes that didn't work (or are at least considering doing so, which is why this poll exists in the first place), but maybe you should consider that ANet also had a REASON for doing those changes in the first place. Trust me, a company that runs an online game without monthly payments doesn't have infinite cash to throw away and they wouldn't have decide to invest their ressources on HA if it was working fine. The thing you just have to realize is that it didn't, the population WAS lowering, and even though hardcore HAers liked the way it was it wasn't working well enough to attract people to it (which eventually just leads to a dying arena, even if it's a year from now when the current hardcore HAers get bored or get a new game). And instead of watching it slowly die, they decided to try to do something about it. Yes, they messed up in part, but they're working on correcting it, so giving some constructive feedback instead of 'revert everything to all it was', which to them was already PROVEN that it didn't work (because of months and months of actually running this system) would be more important if you want an HA you'll like. Cause the reason they won't revert is not cause they're afraid to say that they suck, but cause they already TRIED the first version and it just didn't work after a time even if some hardcore HAers still liked it.

The reason they changed HA in the first place was because of all the positive feedback on 6v6 from non regulars. The system was working fine with the biggest problem being anets refusal to intelligently balance the skills. Instead of reverting back to 8v8 with the mechanics intact and swallow there pride, they chose to listen to the QQing on websites such as the guild hall (from people who have no clue about the arena) that the mechanics were broken, when infact those people were strong supporters of 6v6 in the first place, still supported 6v6, they proposed these changes to fix issues that existed for a very short time in 6v6 (they were fixed with a skill balance).

The fact is the changes to HA do not bring in new players they simply make long time players rage quit, and make the arena a worse place overall.

Thom Bangalter · Feb 27, 2007, 03:17 AM // 03:17

oh, I see now. Make the people that gvg hate it because the old altar maps promoted bad gameplay, and make the new people find it completely inaccessible.

I remember when people wanted 8 man back. They got it, but apparently they still weren't happy.

Apok Omen · Feb 27, 2007, 03:26 AM // 03:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

oh, I see now. Make the people that gvg hate it because the old altar maps promoted bad gameplay, and make the new people find it completely inaccessible.

I remember when people wanted 8 man back. They got it, but apparently they still weren't happy.

This is the perfect example that people can never be satisfied by what is given to them, even when asked. You could bicker for HA to be back to the way it was, but it will still not be enough for you. You would want more.

If Anet actually did everything that was petitioned for on forums, then Guild Wars would have so much stuff that people would soon get bored with it. By putting many of these desires on hold, they not only keep up suspense, but they limit what people want in this game.

Back on topic, I agree with Thom. Even when the players were given a full week of 8v8 HA, they were not that happy as they thought they would be.

lishi · Feb 27, 2007, 03:33 AM // 03:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apok Omen

This is the perfect example that people can never be satisfied by what is given to them, even when asked. You could bicker for HA to be back to the way it was, but it will still not be enough for you. You would want more.

If Anet actually did everything that was petitioned for on forums, then Guild Wars would have so much stuff that people would soon get bored with it. By putting many of these desires on hold, they not only keep up suspense, but they limit what people want in this game.

Back on topic, I agree with Thom. Even when the players were given a full week of 8v8 HA, they were not that happy as they thought they would be.

well , this time there was good reason to not be satisfied.(and i will say many other time also)

or you tell me the 8v8 week was flaweless?